SpotLight
A Study of Constitutional Issues by Topic
Issue 10: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Tyranny
While a book review would normally be outside the
purview of this newsletter, the continuing popularity of
Ayn Rand’s classic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged would
perhaps provide an exception, as it has inspired countless
numbers of idealistic libertarians and conservative
Americans (including originally this author).
Rand is also the founder of the moral philosophy she
labelled ‘Objectivism’.
Objectivism, by its name, would seem to allow if not
demand objective analysis of all matters, including Atlas
Shrugged itself. Consistent with that mandate, then, it is
appropriate to proceed.
Rand was a fervent atheist, deriding all those who
believe in God as mystics of spirit.
She writes in her novel, while pulling no punches;
“A mystic is a man who surrendered his mind at its
first encounter with the minds of others…At the
crossroads of the choice between ‘I know’ and ‘They
say,’ he chose the authority of others, he chose to
submit rather than to understand, to believe rather than
think. Faith in the supernatural begins as faith in the
superiority of others. His surrender took the form of
feeling that he must hide his lack of understanding, that
others possess some mysterious knowledge of which
he alone is deprived, that reality is whatever they want
1
it to be, through some means forever denied to him.”
But what of Rand’s characters; when confronted by
despicable men who use government powers which defy
apparent limitation, what do Rand’s characters do?
1. Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1957.
Pp. 1044-1045.
Revision Released into the Public Domain
November 2, 2020
Do her characters diligently seek to understand how
the government founded to secure the unalienable rights
of man — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness —
was somehow transformed into the supreme government
engine to deny those rights, instead empowering those
who gain control of the reins of absolute power?
Do Rand’s characters ever seek to make sense of the
nonsense which allows government to ignore its own
constitutional limitations, so those who exercise awe-
inspiring power can be stopped, as soon as possible?
No, character after character in the novel submit to
this immoral authority without question, surrendering
themselves to the idea that they cannot even understand
it, let alone challenge it. Their only hope is to step aside,
to concede unlimited power to the ‘looters’ and watch
them destroy the country through their incompetence, so
the primary characters can thereafter return.
Rand’s characters, for their ‘lack of understanding’,
‘submit rather than understand’, ‘believe rather than
think’; never once do they question corrupt government.
For instance, railroad heiress Dagny Taggart offers;
“It seems monstrously wrong to surrender the
world to the looters, and monstrously wrong to live
under their rule. I can neither give up nor go back. I
can neither exist without work nor work as a serf. I
had always thought that any sort of battle was proper,
anything, except renunciation. I’m not sure we’re right
to quit, you and I, when we should have fought them.
But there is no way to fight.”2
2. Ibid., Page 618. Italics added.
 It would be difficult to understand those words as
anything other than unconditional surrender and utter
submission, conceding defeat to the ‘authority of others’,
even when that authority far exceeds our written
Constitution.
And Taggart is far from alone. Philosophy professor
Hugh Akston informed Taggart why he joined inventor
John Galt in his quest to remove the men of the mind from
a society which sought to absolutely control them;
“I quit and joined him and went on strike…because
I could not share my profession with men who claim
that the qualification of an intellectual consists of
denying the existence of the intellect.”3
Judge Narragansett offers;
“I quit when the court of appeals reversed my
ruling…I quit—because I could not have borne to hear
the words ‘Your Honor’ addressed to me by an honest
man.”4
Dr. Hendricks offers;
“I quit when medicine was placed under State
control, some years ago.”5
Oil magnate Ellis Wyatt said he quit;
“because I didn’t wish to serve as the cannibals’
meal and to do the cooking, besides.”6
Stage Actress Kay Ludlow offered;
“Whatever quality of human greatness I have the
talent to portray—that was the quality the outer world
sought to degrade…They used my talent—for the
defamation of itself. That is why I quit.”7
Tycoon Francisco d’Anconia, in response to
“government regulations” passed to cripple his copper
business, which “tightened the noose around (his) throat”
the “harder (he) worked”, stated that he “saw no way to
fight it”, although he offered that John Galt “found the
way.”8
Galt’s way, in his own words, was simply to go “on
strike.”9
3. Ibid., Page 741.
4. Ibid., Page 742.
5. Ibid., Page 744.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., Page 784.
8. Ibid., Page 766. Italics added..
9. Ibid., Page 738.
The Beacon SpotLight: Issue 10: Page 2
Galt elaborated later, stating that;
“I quit that factory. I quit your world. I made it my
job to warn your victims and give them the method and
the weapons to fight you...”10
Galt had much more to say about his strike against the
corrupted world, but never once in the 1168-page novel
does he ever seek to discover the methods actually used by
government officials to exercise essentially unlimited
government power at their whim. He never seeks to learn
the hidden secret of their spectacular success.
And Galt offers the following advice;
“Do not attempt to rise on the looters’ terms or to
climb the ladder while they’re holding the ropes. Do not
allow their hands to touch the only power that keeps
them in power: your living ambition. Go on strike—in
the manner I did. Use your mind and skill in private,
extend your knowledge, develop your ability, but do not
share your achievements with others…”11
Galt offered insight into the time when he and his
followers would return to work, saying;
“When the looters’ state collapses, deprived of the
best of its slaves, when it falls to a level of impotent
chaos, like the mystic-ridden nations of the Orient, and
dissolves into starving robber gangs fighting to rob one
another—when the advocates of the morality of
sacrifice perish with their final ideal—then and on that
day we will return…”12
Galt continued;
“The victims are on strike. We are on strike against
martyrdom—and against the moral code which
demands it. We are on strike against those who
believe that one man must exist for the sake of another.
We are on strike against the morality of cannibals, be it
practiced in body or in spirit.
“We have ceased breaking that moral code. We
shall blast it out of existence forever by the one method
that it can’t withstand: by obeying it. We are obeying
it. We are complying…We have withdrawn the works
of our minds from society.”13
Wow, talk about darkness and discouragement,
complying with and obeying every effort to enslave
mankind. Not exactly the route America’s true founders
sought, thank you, God.
10. Ibid., Page 1048.
11. Ibid., Pp. 1066-1067.
12. Ibid., Page 1067.
13. Ibid., Page 740.
 Really, the best hope for mankind is step aside and
obey the looters’ every command, to watch them take over
until they destroy society because they ran out of victims to
plunder? Hardly inspirational.
But what is to be expected of atheists who understand
nothing of faith and hope, of pursuing a course of action
larger than themselves?
So Rand’s characters, when confronted with invalid
government action, action which by any objective measure
using our federal Constitution as the gauge, submit to that
power without question, surrendering the whole country to
the looters to use at their absolute discretion, allowing them
free reign without resistance until the utter end.
Having no belief in God, Rand and her characters had
only reason. When that reason was insufficient to
understand the problem actually facing them, they were left
with nothing but death and destruction.
Thus it is perhaps without surprise when scores of
people who ride a fume-puffing coal-powered train near the
end of the book die of asphyxiation in the eight-mile long
Taggart Tunnel or when the Project X Xylophone sound-
ray weapon vaporizes everything within a 100-mile radius at
the hands of a mindless brute who cannot even understand
the operator controls but who wants to rule over the secret
facility anyway.
And Rand had more to offer on the coming day when
the men of the mind could return.
Though Francisco d’Anconia offered that he “saw no
way to fight” absolute government control, he offered that
“John found the way”. And that way was;
“to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we
would see the lights of New York go out, we would
know that our job was done.”14
Wow, what inspiration; what hope — to have the same
end-goal as the real-life terrorists who attacked that city on
September 11, 2001.
While Rand’s characters had far different motives than
that of those who unleashed America’s most-destructive
terrorist attack, nevertheless to accept the same end-game
scenario as used by the most rabid of our country’s
adversaries hardly seems wise.
Rand’s book offers further evidence of hypocrisy,
beyond her harsh attack on religious followers of Christ.
14. Ibid., Page 766.
For instance, Hugh Akston, states;
“We never make assertions, Miss Taggart…That is
the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not
tell—we show. We do not claim—we prove.”15
Really, they never make assertions; they do not claim,
they prove?
Well then, what about when Francisco d’Anconia tells
industrialist Hank Reardon;
“Those pieces of papers, which should have been
gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the energy
of men who produce”?16
“Should have been gold” is an assertion, one which was
not proven therein. Never once in the lengthy novel was
any effort ever exerted to understand how the 1933
confiscation of gold in the United States was really only a
margin call on over-extended bankers who had a legal duty
to back their banknotes with gold, with everyone else
actually free to retain their gold.
On the same subject, d’Anconia offers;
“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they
start by destroying money, for money is men’s
protection and the base of a moral existence.
Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a
counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective
standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of
an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective
value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a
mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a
gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.”17
Although Rand is certainly correct with her view as to
gold’s proper status as the legal standard for objective value,
never does she or her characters seek to discover how gold
was cleverly seized and replaced with paper money, all legal
sleight of hand without true authority.
For instance, Dagny Taggart says to John Galt;
“‘What’s Mulligan doing with a mint’?”18
Rand narrates next that;
“Galt reached into his pocket and dropped two
small coins into the palm of her hand. They were
miniature disks of shining gold, smaller than pennies,
the kind that had not been in circulation since the days
of Nat Taggart.”19
15. Ibid., Page 735.
16. Ibid., Page 410.
17. Ibid., Page 413.
18. Ibid., Page 727.
19. Ibid.
The Beacon SpotLight: Issue 10: Page 3
 What then of that lack of gold circulation? What did
Galt and his followers do in response? ‘Blank out’, as Rand
would ascribe of her religious adversaries.
As Rand would write against the believers of God,
when their own understanding of reality “clashed with the
assertions of others, with their arbitrary orders and
contradictory commands,” they would give in “to so craven
a fear of independence that he renounced his rational
faculty.”20
Rand’s characters suffered this same ‘blank-out’
mentality when confronted with invalid government action,
although never does she admit this.
For example, one finds within Atlas Shrugged
conversations such as that between Taggart and Galt, where
she asks him “Well, where can I buy the gold?” Galt offers,
in complete submission to corrupted government;
“You can’t…Not where you come from. Your laws
forbid it.”21
Oh really, in what way, exactly?
Yes, for a forty-year period between 1933 and 1975, it
certainly appeared that way to the un-informed, but why
not work diligently to discover how the government
instituted to protect persons and their property could ever
be transformed into its opposite, as does the author writing
this newsletter, in his own works?
Rand was right to hold gold up as our nation’s
Standard of Value, but never once do her characters look to
discover exactly how counterfeit piles of paper ever gained
an improper foothold as legal tender in the country founded
also upon property and the sanctity of contract.
Rand ruthlessly disparaged the religious, but her
characters commit the same errors she accuses of her
opponents.
Though Rand went to great length to show why the
looters’ shouldn’t be allowed to exist, never once do they
ever question how exactly those looters ever gained such
awe-inspiring power in the first place.
‘Why’ without ‘how’ makes the first an exercise in
futility.
There is little sense going to all the trouble of
explaining the ‘why’ if one won’t make a concerted effort to
understand the ‘how’.
20. Ibid., Pp. 1044-1045.
21. Ibid., Page 718.
The Beacon SpotLight: Issue 10: Page 4
Rand offers that mystics’ belief in God makes God’s
followers mindless automatons who submit without
question to the authority of men who claim authority from
God.
But then Rand’s characters submit without question to
the authority of men who claim authority only through
government, even the government meant to be extremely
limited in its extent.
Of the two, which would be the greater folly?
And human history is actually replete with countless
numbers of Christians standing up against the most
impossible of odds against every sort of tyrant who sought
to deny them their right to worship God, choosing even
martyrdom over denying their faith, who do not waver
from their principles even in the face of certain death.
So what do Rand’s characters do when confronted
with harsh and unjust laws? They obey them. They
comply, while patiently waiting for the destruction of
modern society.
Of the two parties, again which is more principled?
Which parties actually stand more firmly upon their
convictions? Those with an unfailing belief in God, of
course, especially those in real life who suffer terrible
retribution for their beliefs.
In Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s characters acted with
knowledge, reason and volitional action. But when those
limits were reached, there was nothing left to inspire them
to do anything other than quit.
Thus, when confronted with a seemingly-impregnable
power of government to do anything to anyone at any time,
they quit, en masse.
Rand’s characters did not challenge; they did not
question; they did not double-down and try harder; they
quit; they surrendered; they submitted.
When the going got tough, the ‘tough’ escaped into a
remote, hidden valley.
In this author’s own fictional work (Trapped by
Political Desire), his characters of faith in God had hope.
Thus, after reaching his own limits of reason and
knowledge in seeking diligently to discover how
government ever became sufficiently empowered to ignore
its own charter, the character’s faith provided him the hope
and sufficient perseverance to continue searching for
answers, until reason and knowledge could again one day
catch up and make sense of it all.
 Thus, Will Hartline of the Trapped by Political Desire
kept at his research and diligent study until he learned how
tyranny and oppression ever gained an invalid toe-hold in
the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
Will Hartline continued with his quest until he figured
out exactly how clever government magicians turned limited
government on its head, exposing the seemingly magical
power of government as but a clever sleight of hand.
Hartline pulled back the curtain on the wizard of
supposedly unlimited powers, exposing him as but a devious
man adept only at casting confusion; a fraud hiding behind
a curtain, pulling the levers of government to provide but
the appearance of unimaginable power, which, in fact, was
nothing more than a clever mirage.
America’s true story as a country of unimaginable hope
losing its way to generations of con men seeking to line
their own pockets with inconceivable wealth is a story
which must be told. But Atlas Shrugged does not tell it.
And neither does that novel aid the people caught up in
a real-life struggle because not even in the end does Rand
get the solution right, which is hardly surprising since she
wholly fails to accurately diagnose the true problem.
For example, in her closing, Rand offers that Judge
Narragansett;
“sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the
copy of an ancient document. He had marked and
crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had
once been the cause of its destruction. He was now
adding a new clause to its pages: ‘Congress shall make
no law abridging the freedom of production and
trade’.”22
While ignoring that the Constitution cannot be
changed by any one man, Rand offers that her remedy is to
prohibit Congress from making any law “abridging the
freedom of production and trade.”
The errors Rand here makes are substantial. Again, not
questioning ‘how’ omnipotent power ever gained foothold,
she accepts that current bloated authority at face value.
Members of Congress have not even the enumerated power
to regulate ‘production’, after all, only ‘commerce’ or trade.
By seeking to emplace specific restrictions upon
Congress which were never granted in the first place, Rand
comes from the false position that members of Congress
have the power to act except as explicitly prohibited, i.e.,
22. Ibid., Pp. 1167-1168.
that they have inherent powers, except as expressly denied
(exactly opposite the true nature of our federal
government). In other words, she believes the mirage at
face value and questions it not.
For instance, the power to regulate commerce is the
power to make trade regular, consistent, uniform. It grants
no power for the federal government to even regulate
businesses engaged in trade, let alone in production.
Production is the making of a thing, which is not
commerce. Commerce is simply the moving of an existing
thing from place to place and its related functions.
Rand takes the current status quo as within the
legitimate authority of Congress and then seeks to make
permanent changes in the Constitution based upon her false
beliefs. Failure to accurately diagnose the true problem
assures failure of her proposed cure.
It was Alexander Hamilton writing in The Federalist
#84 who spoke of the dangers inherent in ratifying a Bill of
Rights into existence in the first place, for it would provide
designing men with sufficient pretense to claim that the
government had inherent powers, able to exercise powers
which were never granted.
Of course, in 1791, the States did ratify our Bill of
Rights, which were ratified;
“to prevent misconstruction or abuse of (federal)
powers.”23
Our country’s founders so distrusted government power
that they took the unusual step to deny specific powers
never even granted to a government of delegated powers.
Unfortunately, the same Bill of Rights which helps keep
our current government somewhat in check actually makes
it that much more difficult for Americans to see beyond
that appearance [of inherent powers] to understand how to
regain a government of limited powers, exercised using only
the means both necessary and proper for carrying them out.
The answer to restoring limited government is not to
create an exhaustive list of actions which the federal
government is henceforth prohibited from performing, but
to understand how exactly the limited grant of enumerated
powers ever seemed to grow into a government without
apparent limitation in the first place.
Rand’s recommendation further shows the errors of
trying to restrain government through added checks, as she
seeks to deny Congress even the necessary power to regulate
commerce.
23. See the Preamble to the Bill of Rights.
The Beacon SpotLight: Issue 10: Page 5
 If members of Congress are prohibited this power, what We need not seek electoral majorities operating within
of treason, defined and prohibited in the Constitution, as democratic circles. We won the war against tyranny
adhering to one’s enemies, giving them aid and comfort? hundreds of years ago.
Rand offers no exception to her mandate. Our Constitution was ratified as the answer for keeping
tyranny from American shores; it is already the supreme
So, even during a period of declared war, profit-seeking
Law of the Land.
American businesses could not be legally prohibited from
their now-unfettered right to sell the arms and munitions All who exercise governing powers must swear an oath
they manufactured even to our declared enemies, to or give an affirmation to support that Constitution, or they
purposely provide for profit the guns and bullets to kill are under the authority of a superior who already has.
Americans in the armed services and perhaps even a great
We must learn the true principles of our Republican
number of our own civilians.
Form of Government guaranteed to every State of the
It is proper for Congress to have the power to regulate Union in Article IV, Section 4 of our federal Constitution.
and even curtail foreign trade, to put principles above
We do not need electoral or legislative majorities to
profits, to put American lives above American earnings.
uphold this Constitution; we only need to understand how
And that is why the Constitution empowers Congress with
power-seeking tyrants succeed in ignoring it.
that authority.
The mechanism used to gain unbelievable power is not
Just as one’s rights do not go so far as to infringe upon
detailed in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but it is detailed in
the rights of others, so too the rights of free trade do not
Matt Erickson’s public domain novel Trapped by Political
extend to allowing others to help infringe upon the rights of
Desire.
all (especially the sacred right of life) for profit.
Whereas Atlas Shrugged sought to cause an economic
Now, of course, members of Congress currently go far
implosion, by withdrawing society’s most productive
beyond their delegated authority detailed throughout the
members, who could later rebuild, Trapped by Political
whole of the Constitution.
Desire seeks instead the opposite.
But to learn the method used by members of Congress
Trapped by Political Desire seeks to restore our
and government officials to expand government authority
country, directly, by exposing the hidden source of inherent
on their own accord must not be confused with the proper
discretion that allowed our federal servants to become our
mechanism used to expand government authority lawfully.
political masters.
And, that difference is for us citizens to discover.
Why not limit the harm of our would-be oppressors,
The widespread constitutional ignorance of today is not and restore our country’s founding principles, instead of
necessarily the fault of the Founders, even though they did letting our political opponents destroy our country?
not fully anticipate the cleverness of arrogant men in
Ayn Rand had it all wrong, because she never diagnosed
exploiting a little-understood power of the Constitution, to
how her political opponents gained unfathomable power.
transform it into the fount of government omnipotence.
Thus, her novel was nothing but darkness and despair.
There is one clause within our Constitution which
Instead, read Trapped by Political Desire and learn how
allowed immoral, power-seeking sycophants, following
our clever oppressors subverted the Constitution and the
Alexander Hamilton’s deviant lead, to turn America into
rule of law, so we can finally end their false reign.
the country we see today, teetering on the brink of vast
corruption and utter collapse. Trapped by Political Desire, and the author’s other 10
books are all released into the public domain and may be
But, unlike Rand’s characters, we need not let that
freely downloaded at www.PatriotCorps.org;
corruption continue. It is within our power to stop it, by
www.Archive.org; and www.Scribd.com/matt_erickson_6.
exposing its nasty little secret for the whole world to see.
God Bless these United States of America, Land of the
Truth is the enemy of the oppressive American state.
Free, Because of the Brave.

The Beacon SpotLight: Issue 10: Page 6

Released into the Public Domain

by Matt Erickson
Revised November 2, 2020